Public sector debt, that is the national debt that is declared as debt on the books of UKplc stands at around £1.6 trillion or 81% of GDP (all goods and services produced by the nation in one year). It is double today under George Osborne than when he took over the reigns in 2010 and for all of his musings of his economic miracle, Britain is in deep financial trouble.
The unravelling of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies in the 1980’s are coming home to roost. She was consistently warned of the perils of deregulating the banking and financial sector. The subsequent banking collapse in 2008 was largely the fault of her “big Bang” theory we are all paying for so dearly today. Austerity, increased poverty, interest rates, gargantuan bank bailouts, quantitative easing, privatisation to name a few are the direct result of those failed policies.
The consequence of our muted ‘economic miracle’ is that revenue has to be generated from somewhere to fill an ever expanding financial black hole. George Osborne, unable to see any mechanisms for growth other than fully embracing austerity is filling that black hole with one of Thatcher’s other economic destructive disasters — privatisation.
He is set on being the chancellor who sold the nations family silver — what’s left of it. By the end of this year alone, Osborne will have sold nearly £60 billion of national assets built up over generations in just six years and by 2020, Osborne will have largely completed his task.